


stay awake to hear those magic reindeer

by scribblscrabbl



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Christmas fic, Fluff, M/M, holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2855411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblscrabbl/pseuds/scribblscrabbl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all Arthur's dedication to all things adult, he still has a six-year-old kid in him who comes out once a year and goes looking for trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay awake to hear those magic reindeer

**Author's Note:**

> I'm guilty of writing some pretty sappy things, but this one probably takes the cake. Happy holidays!

Eames is good with kids. In all honesty, Eames is _fantastic_ with kids and, as Arthur watches him chase Philippa and James around the house with plush reindeer antlers strapped to his head, Arthur thinks he would’ve warmed to Eames years ago if he’d known. Because he loves kids, he’s always wanted kids, to have a family of multiple generations gathered, loud and obnoxiously festive, around the holidays. He chalks it up to his Midwestern sensibilities.

People like to think they have him all figured out. Dreamsharers especially, because they’re a bunch of cocky assholes. They look at his cold, calculated commitment to getting shit done the right way and the suits he wears like armor, and they figure he’s the unfeeling, heartless type, emotionally repressed at best. He doesn’t bother trying to correct them; being seen as the kind of hardass capable of breaking kneecaps without flinching has its advantages in his line of work. 

The thing is, though: he’s kind of a sap. He’s just selective about who gets to find out that he looks at old boxes of childhood junk when he finds time to fly home, that he cries every time he rewatches _Dumbo_ , and that he likes being swept off his feet when he least expects it. It turned out Eames, of all people—Arthur still maintains it wasn’t a sure thing from the start, although deep down he knows better—suspected all these things were true. Eames, with his goddamn paisley and his stupid grin, wore Arthur down layer by layer, when most people gave up after the first try, which was just as well because people who lack conviction are the worst kind of people in Arthur’s opinion.

Arthur’s last line of defense was that his mother would hate Eames, his loose charm, his distinctly un-American accent, his weird obsession with tea, and it stood for a grand total of two days before it crumbled, because who was he kidding, his mother would fucking _love_ Eames, if only because he wasn’t anything like the other assholes who’d broken her son’s heart. 

And Arthur thinks, as Eames walks back into the living room, one of Cobb’s kids in each arm, that he might even get around to telling her that Eames isn’t really anything like anyone.

“Let’s wait a few more minutes for the cookies to cool, or the icing will melt right off onto your fingers, and then you’ll get sticky Christmas-colored fingerprints all over Daddy’s kitchen.”

Philippa giggles delightedly. “The same colors as the tree and stockings!”

“I want cookies!” James shouts, grabbing at the antlers slipping off Eames’s head, making him look a little unhinged.

“Go get Daddy so he can light us a nice toasty fire, and then we can have cookies, I promise.” 

When the children scamper off, Arthur says, casually, “You’re full of surprises,” as if Eames isn’t making his heart beat like crazy, looking stupid and beautiful in his antlers and his ugly Christmas sweater, and he lays at least half the blame on the spiked eggnog, which he’s pretty sure no longer classifies as eggnog with all the stuff Cobb dumped in it.

“Keeping you on your toes, darling. We wouldn’t want to get bored of each other, would we now.” 

Eames is smiling softly, inches away, clean-shaven for the first time in weeks, and Arthur just has to reach up and touch. He trails his fingertips along Eames’s jaw, thinking that one man’s boredom is another man’s contentment, though he doesn’t say it, just in case it’s the kind of thing that would make Eames run like hell the other way.

Instead he plays it safe. “Do you plan on wearing that thing all night?”

“Why? Do you want to borrow it? I’ll give it up, but only if you let me take all the compromising pictures I want.” 

Eames is wearing a full-blown grin now and Arthur’s about to kiss it off his face because it’s just so goddamn bright and _affectionate_ , when Cobb walks in with his kids in tow, glaring like they’re a couple of horny teenagers who can’t keep it in their pants in front of polite company.

“Okay, you two can get started on the cookie decorating now. But only _two_ each and the rest we’ll save for Santa, all right? Take Uncle Eames and Uncle Arthur with you and keep them out of trouble.”

Philippa pulls at Arthur’s hand and says, “You don’t want to be on the _naughty_ list, do you?”, throwing them both a sly little look he thinks could’ve only been inherited from Mal, and for a moment his chest hurts like hell.

“You’re our only hope, sweetling. Lead the way,” Eames declares, pressing a light hand to the small of Arthur’s back that makes his body loosen like it’s already become muscle memory, which happens more often than not these days and it’s both comforting and fucking terrifying how easily his dimensions have expanded to accommodate Eames.

They sit at the kitchen table with James on Eames’s lap and Philippa on his, even though she’s gotten too big to fit comfortably because even with Cobb here now Arthur sometimes still sees a lost little girl with a hole her mother left in her that her father widened.

“What do you want to draw on your first cookie, _mon petit chou_? How about a tree with red tinsel?”

“No, I want Rudolph!” She beams up at him, legs kicking with anticipation.

“Oh, like Uncle Eames?”

Eames keeps his attention on James, currently crushing his cookie with a tiny fist and trying to sprinkle the crumbs into his mouth, but Arthur knows he never misses a thing. 

“No, silly! He doesn’t have a red nose!”

“Well,” Arthur only hesitates for a second before reaching over the table to dip a finger into the bowl of red frosting, “we can easily change that, can’t we? Eames, you have something on your nose.”

Eames looks up and Arthur, quick as lightning, transfers a fat dollop of the stuff from his finger onto the tip of Eames’s nose. Because, for all his dedication to all things adult, he still has a six-year-old kid in him who comes out once a year and goes looking for trouble.

For a moment Eames is genuinely caught off-guard, blinking at Arthur as Philippa and James collapse into a fit of giggles, and Arthur, ever so calmly, licks the rest of the frosting off his finger, lazily curling his tongue at the end for good measure.

Eames swallows before looking down, making himself cross-eyed, and even that, that little gesture that slides him back into the part he’s being invited to play drives Arthur a little crazy. 

“Well? How do I look?”

“Unbelievably ridiculous. Hasn’t your mother ever told you you shouldn’t play with your food?”

“I hope I’ve never struck you as the sort to listen to anyone, least of all my mother.”

“That’s a good look on you, Eames.” Cobb walks in and reaches over Arthur’s shoulder to snatch a cookie. “Psychotic in an endearing kind of way.” 

“Arthur’s being _mischievous_. I must be dreaming.” Eames is smiling from ear to ear now, eyes twinkling like they have fucking Christmas lights in them, and Arthur can no longer blame any of it on the eggnog.

“This is pretty tame actually.” Cobb chews his cookie thoughtfully. Arthur, suspecting what’s coming, really hopes he chokes on it. “Usually Christmas turns him into a crazy person. I remember years ago we were pulling a job in Mumbai and he decked out the warehouse from floor to ceiling. Mal and I were waylaid by mistletoe everywhere we turned. There was _fake snow_ for god’s sake. He was like a Christmas elf in a tailored suit.”

By that point Cobb’s pretty much confirmed Arthur’s suspicions that he’ll be the kind of dad who gets his kicks from embarrassing his kids in front of their prom dates with naked baby pictures in one hand and an unloaded shotgun in the other. Because, Jesus Christ, Arthur doesn’t even remember that much about Mumbai, and he tries not to feel completely fucking mortified even though he can’t seem to look Eames in the eye.

Then Eames says, “ _darling_ ,” like he’s not surprised in the least, like he’s _charmed_ by all of it, all of Arthur.

And when Arthur looks, he sees Eames with frosting on his nose, sweeping him off his feet just a little with a smile that tells him he’s perfectly content.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [stay awake to hear those magic reindeer (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3366773) by [PureHeartedTyrant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureHeartedTyrant/pseuds/PureHeartedTyrant), [scribblscrabbl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblscrabbl/pseuds/scribblscrabbl)




End file.
